People Power Encouraging UK Supermarkets to Give Away Food for the Hungry

In London, supermarkets have been raising awareness about the amount of food that gets wasted on a daily basis. Considering that a rising number of people and families suffer from some level of food poverty, this has been seen as unacceptable.

Based in the capital, initiatives such as The Felix Project help supermarkets redistribute items to reach the people that need them the most.

A London-wide daily media campaign supporting the project has encouraged a number of local businesses to donate financial support. Already, supermarket giants such as Sainsbury's have decided to donate more food — that would otherwise have been wasted — to local charities daily.

Stop the Rot is another UK-based campaign group who have made it their mission to encourage less food supermarkets to waste less food across the UK.

They ask individuals to speak to their local supermarkets and get them to put policies in place to reduce the amounts of food they may be wasting locally.

"Industry could do better. There's been a huge focus on what consumers can do to cut their food waste. But the food industry generates about half of the food wasted in the UK and it's time for food businesses to pull their weight," their Facebook Page states.

In countries outside of the UK in wider Europe, Italy is said to have implemented a series of incentives to encourage less food waste, such as tax breaks to the businesses that sign up to the scheme. Rather than throw away food, local businesses benefit by donating unwanted food to local charities and this has encouraged many business owners to come on board.

The approach in France is less about incentives, but more about coercing businesses to donate unwanted food items through fear of being fined. The European Commission provides a set of guidelines and helpful resources for businesses based in the EU to help make a difference in their communities. 

In addition to the pressure exerted on the major supermarkets in the UK to donate more of their food for local services that require them, there are also a number of food businesses that have been doing this for many years.

Major food retailer Pret-A-Manger have incorporated food donation into their business model. For year now they have been encouraging a number of local charities to follow their policy of making fresh food daily and giving away everything that gets leftover.

But giving away free and unwanted food may just be the starting point when it comes to ensuring food poverty is tackled effectively as a result.

Sputnik spoke to a large housing services provider based in Hampshire, who have been receiving donations from local supermarkets in their area.

"As much as our service users benefitted from a regular supply of free food provided by local schemes, we found that often there would just be too much food given to us and that much could well have been worth distributing wider to other services in our area," a support worker from the service told Sputnik.

"The importance of managing exactly where the food goes is a missing link for many schemes in our local area, and many charities unfortunately do not have the resource to distribute wider than our own projects. All we can do is provide our clients with info on the food available and hope that it all gets utilized efficiently," she added.

The fact that more food providers across the UK and wider are taking positive action to fight food poverty is certainly a great start, but good coordination and a more structured food waste management policy would certainly make the process a whole lot more efficient.